On Wednesday, a specialist doctor took a quic look at my head-accessible orifices and said there was no need to have come in to see him.

He says the plugged ears can take a month to clear, and told me to go home and snort saline solution a couple times a day for a couple weeks.

Truth be told, since last weeked, just after setting up the appointment (of course), my hearing has improved to maybe less than 5% degradation, so we're on the road to recovery.

So. Onward.

Our poor doggies haven't had a good week either. Last weekend Zero developed a pretty bad "hot spot" on her rear flank, which drives her crazy with itchiness. It may have started as result of stressed anal glands, or an allergy. Not sure, but she had to be sedated, shaved, expressed of anal glands, and what-all. She ended up with a plastic cone on her head and some pills for 10 days.

Then, on Tuesday, Sparky apparently did something to her foot or leg while shut in the house all day. Or maybe she did it while outside that morning and we didn't notice. In any case, she's been a three-legged hopping dog since then, although she's still quite fast and can run up the hill and chase things on three legs almost as well as four. We're not sure what's with her yet, because sometimes she will put weight on the fourth leg but not always. It seems to be something in her foot, but we cannot find it.

On top of this, I used the Chuck-It ball atlatl to put a high-speed tennis ball into Zero's eye two nights ago, which made none of us happy. She's recovering from that, but I won't use the atlatl any more in the yard, even if the balls get really gooey.